Letters From Jehenna
by BlackCavern
Summary: Not even the bonfires of war can thin out the darkness. The white dancing sands are turning red.
1. Chapter 1

It was hard to see, even the bonfires of war couldn't thin out the gathering darkness. All the dust and sand swirling around didn't help much either, the occasional muffled cough echoed like a cannon shot to frayed nerves.

A small shadow sped across the dusty landscape lugging a kind of steel weapon in both hands. Thin panting sounds came from the small figure as it rushed by stumbling on the occasional tuft of grass taking almost no notice to the piles of dead bodies strewn around.

It was just bright enough see the edges of the ragged clothing on the person's body, coupled with a tattered mahogany scarf to keep out the dust. The crossbow grasped in it's small hands was covered in grime but still in good condition.

As the kid got closer it was easier to identify it as a boy, he runs over to a half torn down wall and props up his weapon on it and fired. The recoil sent the small boy staggering backwards but he kept his footing and somewhere in the darkness came a heavy grunt and a thump.

I slowly approached the boy trying to make myself noticeable as not to surprise him. The kid didn't seem to be paying any attention to me as he was reloading the crossbow with an iron dart. Finally I just clapped my hand on his shoulder and said as cheerily as possible, "Hey there kid."

The boy whirled around with surprising speed but didn't make any attempt to swing his weapon at me. Instead he just stood there and stared at me with these large gray eyes. I laughed and took my hand off his shoulder, "You're pretty good at that crossbow kid, think you can beat Prince Innes at sniping?"

The boy looked down for a moment then looked back as if he had a hard to processing my words. "I...it doesn't matter" he finally answered, his words were heavily accented, definitely not Jehenan. "Haha! You're pretty smart, it doesn't matter indeed. But still, you're pretty darn good. A kid at your age surviving this long while us uns in armor dropping dead left and right. Come on kid, why don't you come with me? There's safety in numbers."

The boy nodded and followed me towards one of the various bonfires where I sat down on the dust and the kid followed my example sitting down cross-legged. "Kid, you hungry?" I asked my voice piercing the near comfortable silence. He once again stared confused until I reapeated it more slowly. The spark of understanding was followed by a hesitant nod so I whipped out some food that our convoy gave us this morning and handed it to the kid who slowly began to eat it not bothering to use the fork and knife.

"You got a name?" I asked once the boy was full.

"................."

He didn't say anything for a minute so I took it as a no.

"Well in that case, you got parents?"

"I...did."

I nodded sympathetically, "I get your drift, killed in the war huh? So was your daddy an archer? Taught you the crossbow?"

"No...the house was...burned, there was a fire. They weren't soldiers...I'm just good at it." he answered his voice slightly hoarse from the dusty air. "Natural talent, nice. how long have you been out-" my question was cut off by sounds of scrambling foot steps. I picked up the javelin that I had laid beside me but the boy beat me to the cut as he shot a bolt at our intruder.

"Nice job kid, you are good at that thing." I complimented leaning back down. The boy just re-crossed his legs and slipped another bolt into the crossbow. Suddenly I felt more protected being around this minuscule sniper then inside one of those pachyderm sized suits of armor. "Where are you from? You're definitely not from Jehenna."

The boy tilted his head as if he forgotten where he was born he even ran his hand through his sun bleached hair as if thinking hard. "Um...I don't know. I only remember the burning desert sun." That was apprent in his bleached hair and lightly tanned skin. "Well you've got one heck of an accent to be native boy." I laughed. My laughter faded as more sounds rang out from the dark desert, this time there were much more then one. "Time to go kiddo, got anything else for defense?" The boy nodded and for the first time I saw a small dagger wrapped up in a piece of cloth around his waist.

"Alrighty then, let's scram!" I snatched the kid's hand and started packing. The little boy struggled to keep up but said nothing as his feet moved soundlessly over the sand while I created a constant shuffling sound.

After five minutes of running I stopped for a break, searching around I managed to find a large pile of what looked like linens, oh the spoils of war. Grabbing a few pieces of flint from my pack I lighted the cloth of fire and sank into the sand breathing heavily. I nearly had a heart attack as a loud groan sounded only a few feet from us. There was a Gradonian soldier lying in the sand, his face and helmet smeared with blooded, he was by the door of death. My hand slowly went to my javelin but the boy once again bested me, he unwrapped his knife and quickly stabbed into the soldier's trachea. The soldier's body relaxed without a sound as more blood poured out of his punctured throat.

"You know you could've just shot him and not dirty your hands."

"It's hard to find arrows...." the kid reasoned the way children try to rationalize things that adults don't understand. I smiled to myself the kid he must've learned these things from the people who burned down his house. "How long have you been out here? What've you been doing? Killing?"

"I ran away...and there were soldiers everywhere...and I couldn't find anyone." he whispered looking to the west. I followed his gaze, there was a temporary medical camp there, yeah, the kid would have some kind of opportunity there. Goodness knows what kind of damage it did to his psyche.

"Do...you have a name?" the meek voice warped the words to fit in the foreign accent making it as hard for me as for him to understand. "Yeah, call me Ivan." I answered, "I'm a sergeant in the Jehenan army." I pointed to a pyramid shaped palace in the distance, "You see that kid? That's the source of all our troubles, that and that one over there too." I pointed south-west, to Grado.

"The lords and ladies, kings and queens, their personalities form the nation. And their sick little whims decides what happens to us. But sometimes, if enough of us agree, then we can put someone else on the throne. Still, usually we suffer from their little grudges. Most people wouldn't recognize it but Jehenna has been on a slow but sure decline after the queen's son ran off." I muttered lookiong up at the smoke smeared night sky. "Emperor Vigarde invades his long time best pal Renais and the next thing we know, one of our own is tearing up the desert." I looked over at the boy smiling. "You know, it's okay if we soldiers suffer as human tools but kids like you, you don't deserve all this shit."

The boy had sat up with his knees drawn up to his chin, his eyes wide open trying to absorb my words. Heh, what was I thinking? Children woudn't understand I word I've been saying. "Look kid, once it becomes morning I know a place you can go, there's bound to be other orphaned kids in this pointless war."

"I hate it." he murmured.

"Hate what?"

"Running way, I can't do anything!"

I patted him on the head, "Don't worry 'bout it, that's normal for a kid your age but you're not completely helpless." I gestured to the crossbow. "If you hate being helpless then you know what to do when you grow up."

"Be a solider?" he asked.

"Hell no! Or at least not under Jehenna or Renais or any of those countries. Soldiers just do what they are ordered to, anyway that's why I never wanted to be a knight. The kings and queens have done nothing for me, why should I give them any loyalty. No kid, you should end up being a doctor or a politician or a philosopher or maybe even a warrior of some kind. That way you can save people or persuade people, or introduce your own ideas to the world through words or force." I advised.

"Hm..." the boy looked down at his knees thoughtfully.

I leaned over to him, "Whatever you end up doing kid, make sure to have strong ideals in life, as straight as you can shoot that crossbow. You know something? I wouldn't even be here if it's my choice, there was a draft."

"My grandfather...use to be a knight. He use to say that...fighting by a lord...was a...privlage."

"Yeah? Well your grandad and I couldn't be more different. I don't see what's so special about these lords, cut them up and they'll bleed to death, just like the rest of us." I commented. "Infact I've heard a few things about the royal duo of Renais leading a campaign with some other people."

"So is that them?" the boy asked pointing to the sounds of battle in the far off desert.

"Yeah...I guess so. Say kid, what do you say we just sit back and rest? You can let your career wait for a bit right?"

"Okay." he recrossed his legs and we sat back watching the dancing white sands of Jehenna by the faint light of the rising dawn.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun reflected the minerals in the desert sand creating a wavering light over the landscape. To a Frelian it would've been more then he or she could take but to the orphans of the white dunes, it was more or less normal.

A few children were playing in this scorching sand, their clothes ragged and faded but their smiles were of pure joy as they kicked up whirling streams of dust. Even all their joy combined were only microscopic dots on the graph of sorrow and misery.

The other children were seated in the shade of the few broken clusters of rocks. Around them were a few remnants of weapons, the occasional sword that was snapped in half or a piece of what used to be a spear. Despite popular opinion, the desert's orphans-as they were called-were quite resourceful in times of need. These former weapons could serve some little girl or boy well enough as a toy.

An elder's voice called out the sound warped with distance and the sound waves scattered with the multiple piles of debris around. But the various children all got up and scuttled across the sand to the source of the voice. The source was a series of tents set up by the churches of Rausten. Monks and preists were sent to take care of the desert's orphans and provide them with food and care.

The shrapnel and broken weapons were not allowed inside the "home" but the exception was made to one boy who's weapon was still in perfect condition. This weapon was always in the boy's possession, even a supporting wind, hawks still must keep a sharp eye out.

It hasn't been all that long since the boy was dropped off in the orphanage by Sergeant Ivan and it wasn't all that long since Sergeant Ivan's name appeared on the list of the dead.

But of course the boy didn't know that, the preists forbad talk of the war with the children. They called this boy Feng, and that became his name, it was a strange fact that he never remembered the one his parents gave him.

Feng often stayed up at night while his peers slept and stared at the signs of war. The Gradonians left a trail of destruction where ever they went, the Moonstone's wyvern knights tore up what vegetation managed to scrape out a life in the desert. The Renaisan's full force have not yet arrived, no doubt slowed down by the sand.

There's been occasions when Feng propped his crossbow on a rock and prepared to fire the bolt but a preist's voice in the distance broke his concentration. So now in the tent he sat on one of the makeshift chairs with his crossbow lying on his lap. There has been more then one time when he was asked to get rid of it but he wouldn't let it go, it was something of a security blanket, or a memento.

"Look! Look at that!" a shrill scream erupted at the tent opening. All heads turned towards the cloud of sand. Again a Frelian might think it was a sandstorm but any child of the desert would know it wasn't. "Soldiers!"

There was a brief period of silence then one of the preists grabbed Feng by the shoulder and herded him and the other orphans out of the tent. "Run!" he yelled and shoved them forward. Feng stumbled backwards a few steps before turning and running, once again he wasn't sure where he was going. He just had to run and run he did casting the occasional glance over his shoulder.

He staggered, fell then scrambled up and skidded behind a pile of what use to be the walls of a fortress. Feng got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the debris, the cross bow weighed him down from it's strap around his shoulders. The rocks and shrapnel on the ground stung against his hands and scuffed his knees. He pulled up his scarf to keep himself from gagging on the sand.

A tap on his back snapped him out of the lethargy formed from his mad run and the smoldering heat. Feng swung his crossbow missing another small child by meer inches. The boy and girl that had come up behind him jumped in surprise at his violent recoil. Feng just kneeled there shaking, his circuits blown. "Uh...." he had forgotten his peers' names.

"Feng? W-what's going to h-happen?"

"Um....." he was at a loss for words being only a kid himself. But he had an edge, he had a crossbow so he peered over the edge of the debris. What met his eyes was yet another bonfire, soldiers stood in a circle around the orphanage and the orphanage itself was an inferno. He couldn't shoot them or else they'll get discovered so Feng sat back down.

"The preist said to run." he recalled out loud.

"Run where?"

"I....what about the Renais people?"

_"I heard that the Renais duo is waging a campign." _Yeah, that was what Ivan said.

"Um, okay."

The desicion made, the three ragged kids managed to instill in themselves a small sense of calmness.

The two other kids, they had names given by their parents: Cam and Mae as Feng would later remember. They tried to make themselves as small as possible and keep quiet while the crackling of fire sounded around them.

In what seemed like days, weeks, years, the silence was restored to the desert. The three children cautiously poked their heads over the edge of the rubble. The sight they saw made their very breath catch in their lungs. A soldier decked out in chain mail and wearing the lilac tunic of the Grado empire was strutting across the sand, the light winking on his armor.

His small hands shaking Feng hefted the crossbow up all the while thinking that the soldier had already spotted them. He cringed back, shut his eyes and pulled back the slot that released the trigger. A thud followed and after a moment Mae quickly looked up. A twinge of fear shot through her but the desert's orphans have learned long ago that silence brought safety.

They stayed in the rubble for most of the day, it would bring a stoic to tears to watch the small kids cringing in the sand. The fortress offered little protection from the horrible sun and they had to cringe down to avoid being seen causing their necks and shoulders to ache.

As the sun decided to set it relented it's rays but it brought the problem of the chill of night. Feng had managed to sleep a little but it was terribly hard with the clashes of weapons and the screams of the injured just a couple hundred feet away.

Once the inky darkness settled across the desert Feng with his two companions made a run for it, there was an unfamiliar camp site to the west and they ran there. They ran as fast as their legs could run but collapsed just before they reached the camp. While resting Feng reloaded the crossbow with the same bolt that he shot hte soldier with. It took him much longer then the average bowman obviously but he wouldn't learn that until much later.

Just as the three kids were about to get up again they heard the sound of boots. "What's that?" an adult male's voice rang into the night. The children were paralyzed by fear, maybe they should've run but none of them were aware enough to get up and bolt. When the adult got close enough to cast a shadow Feng fired the crossbow his vision a blur. Still his shot was remarkably well aimed considering that he was trying not to cry at the moment. The bolt wizzed pas the adult form taking off a few strands of hair, the man turned half out of surprise, half dodging.

"Who's there?" the voice asked this time loudly and filled with venom. Cam let out a whimper, Mae and Feng were about to do the same. The crunching sound of boots came closer and the three children cowered together.

"Halt!" the man ordered as they tried to scramble away, he knocked a silver tarter's bow. Good fortune was shining down on Feng and his friends as the man came to an abrupt halt. "Wha-...you're just children." The man had ash colored hair and the same colored eyes that shone with disbelief.

He knelt down so he could look at them face to face, "Huh, so you're the shrimp that shot me with an arrow huh? Pretty good shot for someone your size." Feng shrank back not sure if it was a compliment or a threat. "Heh, I bet Ephraim would take a bunch of miserable orphans like you in. He won't deal with anything else." the man sneered.

The ash haired archer turned and walked back to camp waving his hand for the three children to follow him.

"Is..this a good idea?" Feng asked hopefully.

"I-I hope so." Cam whispered back.

"Come on!" the man called back impatiently causing the kids to scurry after him. They were met by a knight on guard duty with flaming red hair, simliar to that of Jehennans but different. "Prince Innes? Who are these children?" the knight asked after bowing.

"Prince who?" Cam asked his sister.

"I think Frelia, Daddy said something about him after the festival of the sands...I think." Mae answered uncertaintly. Feng's eyes were still fixed on the two men.

"Orphans of the desert, the orphanage was burned down this morning." Prince Innes replied curtly before walking briskly past the knight. The red haired man gave the children a look of sympathy and of a strange kind of respect.

"Ephraim!" Prince Innes yelled storming into one of the various tents in camp, he turned and motioned the three children in as well.

"Innes! Holy Latona does it hurt to knock?" a blue haired soldier yelled back obviously startled.

"Quit your whining there was no door, besides, I would've thought that you of all people would be interested in these children's plight." Innes snapped presenting the three sand covered kids. "I found them outside the camp just now, that one could be of some use, he quite nearly took of my head with a crossbow." he motioned towards Feng.

"Innes! How could you say that? Suggesting that mere children fight!" a blue haired girl exclaimed. "Quiet Tana! If they managed to survive this long then they must be resourceful." Innes rebuked sharply, "So what should we do with them? They've got no home, no place to go."

Ephraim considered for a moment, "We'll take them with us, for the time being at least. We can't just send them out to die die, maybe they can help out around camp?" he suggested looking around for approval. The blue haired girl that got told by Innes agreed immediately along with the second woman in the tent that looked remarkably like Ephraim.

"Of course, the great prince of Renais always takes in pitiful children." Innes approved sarcastically, Feng intook break _sharply So he's the Renaisan prince_?

With that they were taken out of the tent where the two women went to find them somewhere to stay. "Wait." Innes said and took Feng aside, once again he knelt down to the small child's level. Feng tried not to shake, his sun bleached hair and gray eyes and frightened look contrasted sharply with the prince's serious expression. "You're a natural with that weapon, if you pratice you might end up better then I am." he commented. Innes gave the small boy a pat on the shoulder then sent him on his way.

Later that night Innes would be reminded constantly in a...masked innocent tone from his dear sister about his unusual kindness.

"Alright, you guys should be comfortable here. Now don't worry about a thing children, we'll keep you safe." one of the women assured them.

"Th-thankyou Miss..um...." Mae stammered.

"Eirika." the woman answered still smiling.

"Oh! Thankyou Lady Eirika."

"Don't mention it, now you and your friends can sleep well." Lady Eirika assured again.

"You're very brave, enough that even Innes can see." Eirika patted Feng on the head then left the three kids to sleep.

Once the grownups were gone the three of them looked at each other with relief and happiness. "We're going to be alright!" Cam cheered quietly.

His beam was reflected on both Mae and Feng's faces.

"Ivan...said that the Renaisans are here to help...." Feng murmured to himself before finally falling asleep.


End file.
